On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 01:02:15PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> > There are good reasons for having the checks that we do in the NM queue; I
> > don't think there's anything in there that should be cut out, being a full
> > member of Debian does bring with it a lot of privilege and responsibility,
> > and the process for deciding to grant those privileges should be pretty
> > heavy-weight.
>
> I disagree with the above. The *process* should be lightweight, so
> that work is getting done on debian instead of the NM process. The
> *testing* should be harsh, severe and - well - testing.
>
> Changing the NM process from the current interrogation into something
> more evidence- or portfolio-based is long overdue. Instead of testing
> that people can read and write policy, we should test that people can
> do key tasks. Sometimes this may be a dummy task, as not everything
> can be done by everybody for real, but hopefully not too often.
>
> However, I seem to recall that this is not a popular opinion yet.
>
Hmm. (Prepare for an anecdote). I just finished the NM process. I
felt that while the process took an excessively long time to complete,
it *did* have a good balance of policy and portfolio. That is, there
were some very lengthy emails involving answering detailed policy
questions and expressing opinions about particular points of Debian
policy. In addition to that, however, I did have to do the following:
* write a script that used ar, tar, cpio, sed (I am a bit fuzzy on the
exact tools that were allowed) to extract a binary deb and get and/or
change certain information from the package
* pick three open RC bugs, solve them and prepare an NMU, then submit
the diff to the maintainer of the affected package (so that I would
not actually be doing the NMU)
* watch debian-mentors and choose one or two packages and "sponsor"
them; that is, go through all the checks of the package and prepare,
including signing the package for upload, as though I were to sponsor
the upload myself and then pass it to my AM.
Of course, there were some other minor things, but I think the overall
balance was good.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://people.connexer.com/~robertohttp://www.connexer.com